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Indiana Health Information Exchange Inc.

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The Indiana Health Information Exchange Inc. is now ready to go national after its for-profit subsidiary licenses medical records and information software from  Indianapolis-based Regenstrief Institute Inc. The IHIE was spawned from Regenstrief in 2004 to make medical records available on an as-needed basis to hospitals and doctors around Indiana, and now serves 94 hospitals in Indiana and 25,000 physicians in 17 states. Those services are known as the Indiana Network for Patient Care and DOCS4DOCS. The IHIE is now looking to raise about $20 million over three years to take the services around the country, where federal incentives are spurring hospitals and doctors to exchange medical records digitally. “Health care is an information business,” said Dr. Bill Tierney, CEO of Regenstrief. He added, “This new level of partnership with IHIE and its new for-profit subsidiary allows us to impact the lives of Americans living far beyond Indiana’s borders.”

Indianapolis-based StepStone Angels has formed a chapter of angel investors in Bloomington. The group was kickstarted by Ron Walker and Dana Palazzo of  Bloomington Economic Development Corp. and will be led by Tony Armstrong, CEO of Indiana University Research & Technology Corp. An initial meeting in February drew investors from Bloomington and Jasper. StepStone, formed in 2009, also has chapters in Anderson, Indianapolis, Lafayette and Warsaw. The group encourages presentations from life sciences and technology companies seeking $100,000 or more.

The top awards in local architecture this year all went to health care facilities. The Indianapolis chapter of the American Institute of Architects gave its excellence awards April 18 to Indianapolis-based Axis Architecture + Interiors for designing People’s Health Network clinic on the near-east side. Also receiving an excellence award was Indianapolis-based BSA LifeStructures for the expansion and renovation of Franciscan St. Francis Health’s Indianapolis hospital. And a third excellence award winner was krM Architecture+ of Anderson for its design of a health care simulation lab at Ivy Tech Community College.
 

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The Indiana Health Information Exchange Inc., or IHIE, signed a collaboration agreement with Texas-based AT&T to use AT&T’s clinical message exchange system to help integrate new health care providers into IHIE’s database. The organizations think their collaboration could be used around the country. “Our vision is to establish a model of health information exchange for the nation,” said Harold J. Apple, CEO of IHIE, an Indianapolis-based not-for-profit . “We operate the most advanced system for connecting disparate health care IT systems in the nation, and AT&T is helping us take our efforts to the next level.” In fact, IHIE is launching a services organization to help other health information exchanges and large health care systems establish their own systems around the country. AT&T will also work with IHIE on that consulting effort. IHIE is the nation’s largest health information exchange. It has more than 80 hospital and long-term-care systems, more than 19,000 physicians and 10 million patients. IHIE’s services allow hospitals and doctors to exchange patient records electronically, as needed.

CHV Capital Inc., the venture capital arm of Indiana University Health, and Indianapolis-based Spring Mill Venture Partners participated in a $10.9 million investment in PerfectServe Inc. The Tennessee-based company provides communication software systems that route calls and messages to the right doctor on whatever platform they choose at a given moment: office phone, cell phone, text messaging, pager or e-mail. The “series C” funding round was led by PJC Capital LLC, the private equity arm of Minneapolis-based investment banking firm Piper Jaffray. PerfectServe already serves more than 17,500 physicians around the country, processing 30 million transactions each year.

A lawsuit contends that a Carmel-based health insurer ran a scheme to avoid paying in-home-care claims for potentially thousands of California's elderly, according to the Associated Press. Senior Health Insurance Company of Pennsylvania, or SHIP, had a claims process "designed to frustrate and confuse policyholders with needless demands for irrelevant information" in violation of its own policies and California law, according to the suit filed Feb. 4 in San Bernardino County Superior Court by the group Consumer Watchdog. The not-for-profit insurer is run by a trust created by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department. Senior Health Insurance operated as Conseco Senior Health Insurance until late 2008, but Carmel-based Conseco Inc. (now CNO Financial Group Inc.) transferred the unit to an independent trust based in Pennsylvania due to heavy losses. Conseco took a $1.2 billion charge to unload the unit. The new lawsuit claims that SHIP tried to avoid reimbursing policyholders for long-term care by ignoring or taking an unreasonably long time to respond to claims; requiring unnecessary paperwork and medical examinations, and requiring that the care givers have licenses in violation of company policy and California law. The suit, which seeks class-action status, was filed on behalf of Dr. William Hall, 78, of Upland. Hall, a retired chief of medicine at a California hospital, bought a long-term-care policy in 1994 and submitted claims in 2010. SHIP refused to reimburse all but 20 percent of his expenses, the lawsuit claims.
 

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The Indiana Health Information Exchange Inc. appointed Dr. Josh Nelson as its chief medical officer. He will discuss medical issues with customers and stakeholders of IHIE, a not-for-profit organization that provides access to patient medical records and data from those records. Previously, Nelson was a physician executive fellow at Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. He holds a business degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a medical degree from UC-Davis. Nelson began his medical career as a hospitalist at the California-based Kaiser Permanente health system.

Dr. Sonal Bazeley recently joined Anesthesia Consultants of Indianapolis LLC, which now has nine physicians. Bazeley previously practiced in Lansing, Mich. She did her medical training at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo.

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Indiana Health Information Exchange Inc., based in Indianapolis, added two more hospitals to its medical-record-swapping network. Logansport Memorial Hospital and Woodlawn Hospital have linked their electronic medical records systems to those of 79 other hospitals, long-term care facilities or health centers via the Exchange’s Indiana Network for Patient Care. The network handles about 3 million secure transactions of clinical data every day, including laboratory test results as well as medication and treatment histories. The goal of the exchange is to help doctors have the fullest information possible to choose the best therapy and to avoid drug interactions that could harm or even kill patients.

Marian University is a step closer to recruiting students for its new medical school after it won pre-accreditation status from the accreditation commission of the American Osteopathic Association. The initial step of approval had been delayed since December, when the commission requested that Marian put money it has raised to fund the school in a different kind of escrow fund format than Marian had done. That setback led Marian to plan to open the school in fall 2013 instead of fall 2012. It now hopes to receive provisional accreditation in September, after which it can begin recruiting students. “We decided that we would get a much higher quantity of the students we wanted to attract,” Dr. Paul Evans, dean of Marian’s college of osteopathic medicine, told IBJ in April. “We felt we would have more time to get the word out.” Because doctors of osteopathy go into primary care at higher rights than doctors of medicine, Marian hopes its new med school—only the second in Indiana—will help address a shortage of primary care doctors estimated to reach 2,000 by 2020.

Profit surged at CNO Financial Group Inc. in the first quarter, topping expectations of Wall Street analysts. The Carmel-based life and health insurer on Monday reported earnings of $54 million, up 59 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. The profit translated to 19 cents per diluted share, compared with 16 cents per share predicted by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. CNO enjoyed a big boost in profit at its Chicago-based Bankers Life unit because of higher interest-rate spreads on its annuity products, as well as fewer costs on long-term care policies it holds but no longer sells. Those results offset a dip in profits at CNO’s Carmel-based Washington National unit and flat profits at Philadelphia-based Colonial Penn. Revenue totaled $1.05 billion, up 4.7 percent and slightly ahead of analysts’ projections.

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Indianapolis-based Krieg DeVault LLP hired Jason D. Schultz as an associate in its health care practice, working from the firm’s office in Mishawaka. Schultz focuses on transactions and compliance for hospitals, physician groups, mental health facilities, radiology facilities and medical device manufacturers. He previously worked for Indianapolis-based Baker & Daniels LLP.

Indiana University Health named Dr. Douglas Schwartzentruber medical director of cancer services and associate director for clinical affairs at the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center in Indianapolis. Schwartzentruber, a surgical oncologist, most recently was medical director of cancer care at IU Health’s hospital in Goshen. Last year he was named to Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world for his research showing potential for a vaccine therapy to treat cancer. He is a graduate of the IU School of Medicine and a former research investigator at the National Cancer Institute.

IU Health hired James G. Terwilliger as vice president of cancer services for its statewide network of hospitals. Most recently, Terwilliger served as executive vice president of cancer centers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Terwilliger holds a bachelors degree from Boston University and a masters of public health from the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Indiana Health Information Exchange named Jim Hill vice president of sales. Previously, Hill was CEO of his own software company, Achievant, which provided human capital-management services. Hill holds a bachelor's degree from IU and an MBA in marketing from Butler University.

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Community Health Network appointed registered nurse Cindy Adams its chief nursing officer, overseeing 3,000 nurses. On Feb. 26, Adams will replace Jan Bingle, who is retiring after 27 years at Community. Adams holds degrees from Ball State and Indiana universities. She resides in Shelbyville.

Dr. Marc Overhage is leaving Indianapolis-based Indiana Health Information Exchange Inc. to become chief medical informatics officer of Siemens, a German company with its U.S. health services business unit based in Pennsylvania. Until earlier this year, Overhage was CEO of the exchange, but stepped down and was replaced by local software entrepreneur Harold Apple.

Dr. Isaac J. Myers II will become president of St. Francis Medical Group on Feb. 28. Myers was previously vice president of clinical and business integration at Wishard Health Services. From 1998 to 2006, Myers was vice president of medical affairs for Advantage Health Solutions, a health insurer in Indianapolis. A New York City native, Myers earned his medical degree from Wayne State School of Medicine and performed his residency in family medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Dr. James L. Gahimer has established a practice with the newly created Center Grove Internal Medicine in Greenwood, which is part of the St. Francis Medical Group. Gahimer previously worked as a drug safety consultant with T.L. Care Corp in Beech Grove, and before that was a medical adviser in global product safety at Eli Lilly and Co.

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Katz, Sapper & Miller LLP hired Colin Gulledge as a director in its health care resources group, helping hospitals and health systems improve reimbursement, compliance and coding practices. Gulledge has a bachelor’s degree in public health administration from Indiana University and an MBA from Butler University.

Dr. Smriti Banthia has joined Franciscan St. Francis Medical Group Indiana Heart Physicians after completing a fellowship at Northwestern University. She holds a medical degree from the Indiana University School of Medicine and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
 
Pierceton-based Paragon Medical has hired Michael Gosmeyer as chief compliance officer. Gosmeyer joins Paragon after serving as director of regulatory affairs at Batesville-based Hill-Rom Holdings Inc., a maker of hospital equipment.

Robin Bellinger has joined Riley Children’s Foundation as chief development officer. Bellinger spent the past eight years at Purdue University, where she served as associate vice president of advancement, a senior director of development and interim vice president of advancement.

The Indiana Health Information Exchange named Harold Apple its new president and CEO, replacing Dr. Marc Overhage. Overhage will stay on as chief strategic officer and national policy adviser. Apple, 65, founded Indianapolis-based software firm Vector Technologies Inc., which he sold to a U.S. subsidiary of India-based Mastek in July 2007. 

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Marian University in Indianapolis has named the founding dean of an Atlanta-area medical school to head up the school for osteopathic doctors it plans to open in 2012. Paul Evans has been dean and chief academic officer for six years of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Suwanee, Ga. In his new position, he will lead efforts by the private Catholic university to establish Indiana's second medical school. Marian officials announced in January plans for the new school that they say could enroll 150 students in the first class. Construction hasn't started on the school. Osteopathic doctors have similar training to traditional physicians, but also are trained in diagnosing and treating musculoskeletal problems.

The Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Indiana Health Information Exchange will now work to make their systems talk to each other in a pilot project spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The department will invite veterans who receive medical care both at Roudebush and at private health care providers around central Indiana to sign up for the pilot. Records for patients who participate could be swapped from the VA providers to the private doctors and hospitals as needed. The Indiana Health Information Exchange provides access to the records of more than 6 million patients through its partnerships with 60 hospitals and the Indianapolis-based Regenstrief Institute Inc., which maintains decades of Indianapolis patient records in a database. The VA hospital in Indianapolis will communicate with the Indiana Health Information Exchange using a new “gateway” set up by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Called the Nationwide Health Information Network, it provides the technical and legal framework to allow patient information to be swapped electronically and securely.

A new report shows Indiana hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers recorded 94 preventable medical errors in 2009, a drop from the 105 mistakes reported in 2008 and 2007, according to the Associated Press. The most common error last year was a foreign object such as a sponge left in a patient after surgery. Indiana's 306 facilities reported that error 29 times. The report released Monday by the Indiana State Department of Health counted 17 instances of surgery performed on the wrong body part. Pressure ulcers, also known as severe bedsores, occurred 22 times—down from 33 the previous year.

WellPoint Inc. finally got its rate hike—five months after the storm. The Indianapolis-based health insurer won approval last week from regulators in California to raise rates on individual policyholders in the state by an average of 14 percent, according to the Associated Press. WellPoint had withdrawn a request for rate hikes averaging 25 percent—and ranging as high as 39 percent—after President Obama spotlighted them and public outrage ensued. The brouhaha has been credited with helping Obama push a stalled health reform law through Congress. An outside actuary hired by California regulators later found math errors in WellPoint’s calculations, which led to WellPoint withdrawing and then requesting the smaller increase.

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VA hospital, health-info exchange enter pilot project

The Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Indiana Health Information Exchange are going to work to make
their medical record systems talk to each other in a pilot project spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Exchanges sprout around the country

When the Indiana Health Information Exchange launched in 2004, it was one of nine truly operational exchanges around the country.
Today, the Indianapolis-based organization is one of 73, according to the latest national survey by the eHealth Initiative.

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